


Sinking Deep

by Dawn_Siren



Category: Original Work
Genre: Brutal Murder, Cannibalism, Confused Mermaids, Danger, F/F, Government Agencies, Inspired by Siren (2018), Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Learning to be Human, Long-Term Relationship(s), Marine Mammals, Mates, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Murder Wives, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Polyamory, Predator/Prey, Secret Identity, Secrets, Shapeshifting, Sharing a Bed, Transformation, Work In Progress, well sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawn_Siren/pseuds/Dawn_Siren
Summary: With food supplies underwater dwindling for a variety of reasons, the colony begins to hunt on land. One of them ends up injured in someone else's bed. Shenanigans, government coverups, and other randomness ensue. Obviously. And besides, who wouldn't want a man-eating mermaid living with them?





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> So at first, this was going to be a Siren fanfic.
> 
> And then I realized, hey, no actual canon characters are in this. So it became just Siren-inspired. Enjoy.

Many years ago, a city sank beneath the waves. A mighty earthquake shook the island out from beneath it, and so it settled on the floor of a deep, cool ocean. That quake cracked the floors, snaked up the walls. It sent chunks of roof crashing down.

 

But, as with all things, life sprouted from death. Sand and silt drifted in, dragged by the current. Seaweeds and corals colonized the broken edges. 

 

Many of the smaller buildings sank only as bits of rubble. Some settled in such a shape that they could barely be defined as buildings. But one structure outlived them all.

 

A palace, on the outskirts of the city.

 

Two great chasms split the floor and broke through walls, but of everything that had gone down with the island, it stood strongest.

 

Over time, it too fell prey to the sea’s embrace, drifts of sand coating parts of pale blue crystal tiles, corals claiming the edges of cracks, fan worms and tubeworms settling in shadowed crevasses, algae riming the walls like winter frost.

 

These small creatures were the first to settle, but they would not be the last.

 

Crabs arrived, followed by urchins, sea slugs, starfish, brittle stars, squid, octopi, and fish. Sharks followed, whipping through holes in the walls to snatch prey.

 

And then, the grand palace emptied. To an outside observer, it would seem as if they had simply moved on. But to those who knew better, that was very much not the case.


	2. Landfall

The young female whipped through the water, her tail lashing it into frothy bubbles. At her side and behind her were a few members of her pod, also hunting.

 

And up ahead was their target. A small group of sharks, enthralled with their own kill. Light from the surface filtered down weakly, but it was more than enough for her eyes, pupils contracting to adapt to the mildly brighter water. 

 

She hung back, her nose working as the scent of blood filled the water. 

 

When the alpha willed it, they would attack. They couldn’t afford to let even the slightest bit of food escape. Not now.

 

She glanced over to the largest female in the group, floating quietly in place.

 

A slight change was the only signal the other females needed. When the alpha’s hands curled into claws, she lunged.

 

One shark fell with a simple slice of her tail along its underbelly that had the entrails spilling free, and another she quickly grabbed, snagging her claws into its gills and raking viciously.

 

It wasn’t long before the swarm of sharks were dead. The young female ate her fill, and then gathered up as much meat as she could carry, swimming back to the colony with the others. 

 

The swim was far longer than it usually was. But that wasn’t uncommon in these lean times. 

 

The female dove through one of the great cracks in the colony’s home, shooting between two of the guards and letting go of her catch, the others falling on it in a frenzy.

 

She swam down to the thick corals and grasses coating the bottom and rolled, letting the slippery tendrils stroke her skin. The action brought her attention to an itch near her tail fin. She twisted her tail up to investigate it and hissed to find a mite trying to burrow under her scales. 

 

Her sister looked over and cocked her head, letting out an inquisitive chirp. In response, she stretched out her tail, noting her sister’s mouth tightening slightly, and then she crooned as her sister reached out and plucked the mite free, crunching down on its shell. 

 

She purred, and her sister went back to eating. 

 

And then she realized something.

 

She’d been to the surface a few times when she was young. The surface world was crawling with prey. Weak, slow prey. It even swam in the shallow water or came out on it in floating contraptions.

 

Prey that size could feed the colony for a lifetime.

 

She swam over to the alpha, keeping her eyes lowered. She formed the claw with her hands and gently grabbed the alpha’s arm before letting go, taking a few strokes away and turning to look back.

 

When she was satisfied the alpha was following, she swam to the surface, moving inland as she swam until she reached the shallows. Slowly, she raised her head above the water, blinking to clear debris from her second lid as her pupils adjusted to the brightness of the surface. 

 

The alpha surfaced beside her, watching the shore.

 

The lights of the prey colony shone in the night, and the young female slid onto the sand, breathing hard as she changed, the scales sloughing off her skin, her fins disintegrating, her tail splitting in two until she looked like one of the prey that walked the land. 

 

Unsteadily, she pushed herself upright, balancing on two legs, and turned to the alpha, who watched her coolly. 

 

Slowly, she moved through the prey colony until she found a dwelling, the scent of two sleeping prey reaching her nose. Soon after, her ears picked up the sound of deep, steady breathing and two pulsing hearts.

 

She ripped away the door and crept inside, her feet silent on the floor. She followed the scent up, and into a room where two prey lay still. 

 

All she needed was one, really, to prove that it could be done. But two would provide more food to the colony.

 

The first one was dead before it could scream, its neck snapped. The second, she made sure was unconscious before dragging both back to where the alpha waited.

 

The one she’d killed, she passed to the alpha. The other, she left in the water as she shifted, groaning as her legs knitted back together, fins sprouted, and the transformation finished off. She grabbed it by the leg and swam towards the colony with it, Alpha following. 

 

As they got close, her prey woke up and started thrashing in her grip. She hissed at it, and it thrashed harder.

 

She was starting to regret bringing back a live one to demonstrate how easy they were to kill. Easier than sharks, that bit back and left deep wounds if they weren’t grabbed right.

 

The prey went limp. It had either passed out again or given up.

 

When she and Alpha were right over the colony’s home, she dove, dragging the prey with her. 

 

Her mothers were the first to swim up, studying the new prey she had found. A pleased trill bubbled unbidden from her chest.

 

When she was sure she had everyone’s attention, she poked the once again thrashing prey, its movements making every instinct order her to rip it apart, to feed the colony. She could feel each quiver rake its way up and down her sides. 

 

Its skin tore easily under her claw, and she watched the others inhale the smell of its blood.

 

Its struggles rapidly slowed, and she hissed. Apparently, this prey didn’t do well in water. If they wanted it fresh, they would have to feed closer to the surface.

 

Easy enough. She wrapped her tail tightly around the lower half and dug her claws into the soft, tender flesh, closing her jaws around the exposed throat and tearing, the flavor bursting across her tongue, warm and coppery. 

 

One of her mothers, the stronger of the pair, swam up and took a bite, ripping a chunk from the arm, and then the colony swarmed the food, ripping it apart and devouring it, along with the other she’d killed. 

 

They’d repeat this process for weeks, going to the surface, hunting down enough food for the day, and bringing it back to eat.

 

At least, until things went wrong for her.

 

As she crept into a small, broken-down prey home, a board cracked loudly under her feet, alerting the prey.

 

The prey that, unlike so many others, had defenses. It came flying at her with something sharp, the blade cutting through her front.

 

She let out a screech and lashed out, flinging the prey away. Its head cracked against a wall, and it groaned.

 

She crept over, with every step an effort, and slashed again. The weapon came up and cut deep into her arm, her shoulder, and just missed her neck. 

 

With a shriek, she violently snapped the prey’s neck, and then croaked hoarsely, staring at the red coating her fingers. Her red. Her blood. So much of it.

 

She limped heavily to a home that held no living scent within it and collapsed onto one of the soft sleeping platforms.


	3. Stranger

 

When Summer got home from Nikki’s at around three in the morning, she was greeted by a very strange sight. While a naked woman in her bed wasn’t unusual these days, said woman being a bleeding stranger was.

 

She walked over carefully and gently tapped the woman’s shoulder. “Hello? Are you alright?”

 

The woman let out something that could have been a groan or a hiss. At least she was alive, then.

 

Summer picked up her phone and dialed Nikki. “Hey, babe. I know I just left, but you need to get over here. There’s some chick unconscious in my bed, and it looks like she’s bleeding pretty bad. I could use an EMT.”

 

“Sure, Summer. I’ll be right there. See if you can find the wound and staunch the bleeding.”

 

The line went dead, and Summer carefully rolled the woman over with a grunt. For being so tiny, the girl was surprisingly heavy.

 

What she saw made her stomach lurch. Two massive, deep cuts that looked like someone had taken a butcher knife to her, one slicing down her sternum to her hip, the other, slightly shallower, cut from her elbow to her shoulder, with a small nick on the side of the woman’s neck.

 

“Oh, shit, no. Okay, yeah, how is this woman still alive?” Summer muttered, and balled up the sheets, pressing them into the wounds, tying one of the blankets tightly around the cut on the woman’s arm while putting pressure on the deeper cuts. 

 

It wasn’t long before Nikki shot in with her vet bag and gently moved Summer aside. “What’s her situation?”

 

Summer barely glanced up. “Looks like knife wounds. The torso cut is the one i’m worrying about, but there’s a shallower slice on her upper left arm and a small nick on her neck that isn’t really bleeding.”

 

Nikki nodded and shifted aside the blanket on the torso and hissed through her teeth. “Oh,  _ shit _ . How is this girl alive?”

 

Summer shrugged as Nikki gently rinsed the wound with alcohol and stitched it up, Summer cradling the woman’s head in her lap to keep her still, rasping hisses and pants coming from the woman’s mouth. 

 

“Hey, you’re okay. Almost done with this cut,” Nikki said quietly, and when she finished the stitches, wrapped a bandage around the woman’s torso. When she was done, she repeated the process on the arm.

 

The woman seemed to drift into a more peaceful state. Nikki took the bloodied sheets, headed briefly towards the laundry room, took another look, and then tossed them into the wood-burning fireplace and tossed in a lit match. “That is not washing out, and we don’t want the trash guy thinking we committed murder.”

 

“Sure. Can you get a pair of underwear and some of my sweats from the closet? And maybe a shirt?”

 

Nikki nodded and got the items requested, helping to dress the girl as carefully as possible. When they were done, Summer curled up in the window seat while Nikki sat on the bed to watch over the woman while she was resting.

 

It was impossible for them to know what they’d just accepted into their life.

______________

The female woke up slowly, hissing at the strange tightness in her abdomen and arm. She took in her surroundings. First, sight. She was alone, surrounded by soft colors and wrapped in something warm and soft.

 

Second, smell. Two female scents, their owners appearing to have been there recently, and the place where she was laying was covered in

their scent, with one being stronger than the other. Fainter, something sharp bit her nose, and fainter still was the smell of prey.

And third, hearing. Further into the human dwelling, things clicked and clanged, something sizzling, something cracking.

Cautiously, she moved the thing off her and studied the things covering her body. Carefully, she lifted one to find more, a thick layer of white across the cuts. And when she pulled that off, black lines through her flesh, down the line of the already-closed wound. It would be tender a few days yet, but it was past the risk of breaking open again. She brushed the softer, puckered pink flesh, plucking lightly at the black lines. They didn’t belong there, and didn’t seem to be serving any purpose. 

She tugged lightly, and hissed as it reverberated down the wound. The lines went  _ inside  _ her skin, somehow. She couldn’t just pull them off. A small pair of something caught her attention, and she grabbed it, moving it open and closed. When she touched the inside of the two parts, it was sharp. 

Carefully, she lifted one of the lines, slid one part of the sharp thing under it, and closed the blades.

The thing broke in two, and she tugged one end, pulling it out painlessly, but for a slight tugging sensation.

She did it to another line, and another, until she’d removed all of them, and took another look at her wounds. Not much worse than when she’d gotten into a fight with one of Alpha’s daughters. 

Footsteps.

 

Her head jerked up, and she bared her teeth, scrambling into a defensive position, hating the way she was restricted in this body, hating the new skin that tensed and bit when she moved quickly.

The door creaked open and a tall, dark-skinned female walked through with a flat thing, slowing. “Oh, you’re awake. I made you breakfast.”

She hissed and bared her teeth, her muscles tensing and relaxing interchangeably as she prepared for an attack.

The female turned and set her thing down, and when she was occupied, the siren struck. 

The female hit the ground with a yell, and the much smaller siren settled her weight onto her shoulders, grinding them into the soft ground with a vicious screech. 

Her head snapped up as another female ran in, holding something in her hand. 

It took barely a second to realize what the other female was holding.

A weapon. 

She pushed off the prone female and lunged for the other one, twisting to avoid the weapon and ramming her shoulder viciously into the female’s gut before darting out and ripping her way through a fine metal mesh that bit irritatingly at her skin.

She stopped and let out a hiss when something bright and painful slammed into her eyes, the same color as Alpha’s hair.

  
  


She covered her eyes and bared her teeth at nothing, her skin screaming against a sudden onslaught of painful heat, worse than anything she’d ever known. The nights on land had been warm, almost uncomfortably so, but the days…. 

She stumbled back into the human dwelling, blessed cool stroking her skin once more, out of reach of the oppressive light and heat. Bright and dark spots, some of them colored, swam across her vision. 

The two females stared at her, and she hissed.

The paler one stepped forward cautiously, wincing. “What’s your name?”

The female turned her head so far sideways her ear was pressed against her shoulder, still blinking the spots from her sight.

The darker female blinked. “Your name. You know, the thing other people call you?”

The siren clicked slowly, her mouth tightening.

The two females looked at each other, and the siren read them curiously. The way they stood, the closeness, suggested they were mates.

The full force of what she’d done slammed into her. She’d touched another female’s mate, one that wasn’t related to her. Even worse, she’d  _ attacked _ one. In all logic, she should be scraps right now. 

She had to make this better, and fast.

 


End file.
